US tops scammers list, Nigeria is a distant second



The buzzword among foreigners, even those who have never been to Nigeria, is that the country is the world's biggest haven for scammers. But is it? Are there more scammers in Nigeria than there are in other countries? In the quirky court of global opinion, the answer that many non-Nigerians (and a few Nigerians) would give to both questions is a resounding yes. However, some Nigerians have long complained that this ill-repute has never been supported by facts. An annual report on the cost and character of Internet crimes in the United States of America released last week says US citizens lost about $182 million to Internet fraudsters last year. The US Internet Crime Complaint Centre annual report for 2005 also says over 70 per cent of the perpetrators of the crimes that resulted in this loss are located in the United States. "The total dollar loss from all referred cases of fraud was $183.12 million with a median dollar loss of $424.00 per complaint. This is up from $68 million in total reported losses in 2004. During 2005, Internet auction fraud was by far the most reported offence, comprising 62.7 per cent of referred fraud complaints. This represents an 11.9 per cent decrease from the 2004 levels of auction fraud reported to IC3," the report says.

The report, which can be found on www.ic3.gov or www.ifccfbi.gov, is the fifth of its kind and was compiled from complaints received by the centre between January 1, 2005 and December 31, 2005. It is estimated that the loss could even be higher than the one reported as experts at the centre have said that only one out of seven Internet crime incident ever gets reported to the authorities. In 2005, the IC3 received 231,493 complaints, an 11.6 per cent increase over 2004 when 207,449 complaints were received.

While experts say Nigerians are often behind Internet e-mail scams, they also agree that most types of Internet crimes (internet auction scam, non-delivery, credit and debit card fraud, check fraud and child pornography) are carried out by non-Nigerians.

The facts and figures in this report also lend credence to this. In all the five reports released by the IC3 so far, the US has consistently taken top position as the nation with the highest number of scammers. "Among perpetrators, nearly 75.4 per cent were male and half resided in one of the following states: California, New York, Florida, Texas, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Ohio. The majority of reported perpetrators were from the United States. However, a significant number of perpetrators were also located in Nigeria, United Kingdom, Canada, Italy, and China," the report says. "Recent high activity scams seen by IC3 include Super Bowl Tickets scams, phishing attempts associated with spoofed sites, re-shipping, eBay account takeovers, natural disaster fraud, and international lottery scams," the report says.

Internet auction fraud, a crime whose perpetrators are mostly male and based in the US, tops the list of these Internet crimes. "Internet auction fraud was by far the most reported offense, comprising 62.7 per cent of referred complaints. Non-delivered merchandise and/or payment accounted for 15.7 per cent of complaints. Credit/debit card fraud made up 6.8 per cent of complaints. Cheque fraud, investment fraud, computer fraud, and confidence fraud round out the top seven categories of complaints referred to law enforcement during the year," the report says.

The report says the anonymity, which the Internet affords perpetrators, is a huge factor in their high success rate. It identified electronic mail (e-mail) and web pages as the two primary mechanisms by which the fraudulent contact took place. Of all complaints received, 73.2 per cent of complainants reported that they had e-mail contact with the perpetrator and 16.5 per cent had contact through a web page.

IC3 was set up five years ago and is jointly run by the US Federal Bureau of Investigations and the National White Collar Crime Centre.

thanks for the enlightenment, this is really detailed. i think enough awareness is necessary to stop people from falling victim of these yahoo boys as they are called here in Nigeria. but one fact is that, if u are not fradulent yourself, u wont get 419ed by these people, i get mails from them, telling me i won a lottery i never entered for, in such situations u just dont lead them on in any way to get u duped.

No surprise there. This whole nation was established via the implementation of a whole plethora of scams.